Looking for high power warming sounding tube amps


Right now running bottlehead moreplay into pass x350.8. Speakers are ns5000. The sound is great but my buddy let me borrow cj lp140ms and the mid range magic these amps brought was amazing. The pass had better bass and maybe detail. 

I wanted to see if I could get tube amps that had pass bass with romance of cj. I tried prima luna evo 300 but it was a step down from cj in terms soundstage and tone. 

 

I'm guessing I need more power.. maybe at least 100 wpc. Any recommendations looking to spend less than $7k.

smodtactical

Showing 2 responses by russbutton

Get into a VTA M-125 monoblock pair.   120 watts each.  You can enjoy the immense satisfaction of building them as a kit  ($2000/pair - no tubes), or just buying them fully assembled and tested ($2800 - no tubes)(tube sets available for $750).

@smodtactical I run a VTA preamp I’m thrilled with. I’ve heard one of their ST-70 amps. Were I in the market for a big tube amp, the M125 pair would be what I’d go for. The designer, Bob Latino has a very good rep. These are well built and engineered amps. Well supported after sale as well.

Here’s a clue for you. They’ve sold hundreds of these M125 amps and you very rarely see them on the used market. There are none for sale at this time so far as I know.

Here’s an article comparing the VTA ST-120 vs a Mac 275. All of the VTA amps sound pretty much the same, with the bigger amps simply having more headroom.